The Fyre Chronicles Chapter 26
The Fyre Chronicles Chapter 26 I was half pushed, half running up the staircase, eager with expectation for the upcoming fight. The whole staircase was shaking with the pounding of many feet. We were leading the assault and the entire way down was packed with people, and that was not even everyone in the room. The Yce had really had a lot of slaves. Finally the first few of us made it to the next floor. As soon as I could, I scanned the room quickly. It was a big open room, as wide as the tower went and with several primitive beds spread out in the entire room. But there was no one here. This place could hold a few hundred soldiers, but there was no one to be seen. I looked towards the ceiling where the staircase wound upwards and considered the possibility that I might have defeated them all. It was hard to see how high the stairs went since a thick fog swirled around below the ceiling. With a push I was reminded that I was blocking half the staircase so I spread out into the room and everyone else did so too. It seemed that the tower became narrower the higher you went so we were packed more and more as people ascended. Finally Sates and I stood with our backs to the illuminant walls, Santuric had been carried to some other area by the flow of the crowd. People were still yelling randomly but all went quiet as 37745 went up a few steps to look over the crowd. “They aren’t even here!” He yelled in triumph and a great roar of laughter went through the room. “They don’t even dare to fight us, the cowa…” But then a pang came from somewhere above and everyone looked up to see what had made the noise. But I had seen a bright blue thing sail through the air from above, and by the sound of the gasp, it seemed Sates did so too. Somewhere towards the center, a woman screamed and my fear was confirmed as I could no longer see 37745. “They got him!” Someone said with almost complete silence following in its wake. But this silence was broken as great bangs rung throughout the room. The fog above had begun to bombard the crowd with balls of mist which exploded in a shard of Yce on impact. One landed near us and felled all the people around the area of impact. With some of the crowd gone I could see that it was actually people that had been the fog, or to be more precise, Yce soldiers. I could hear Sates yell to my right, barely audible through all the screams and yells “We’ve gotta get up the stairs!” Without waiting for an answer, he began to run through the crowd and I had no choice but to follow. To all sides people were fighting. The Yce soldiers had strength, but the slaves had numbers. After the initial shock was gone, the slaves were now angrier than ever, filled with rage for their fallen leader, and combined with their numbers, this became a force to be reckoned with. Although a single slave was no match for one of the soldiers, twenty was and if just one got on the back of a soldier, the brief pause in attacks was enough for them to throw themselves at him and stab him with their little knives made of ice shards. Here and there I would throw a fyreball at a soldier who was smart enough to not let anyone get near him, although they probable never expected a fyreball to the face. But it was still too soon to know who would win this battle and Sates and I were very easy targets with our bright orange Vulkanadon cloaks. And not before long we were facing one of the soldiers who had spotted us. “Oh no you won’t!” he yelled as we tried to run past him and slammed his palm into the ground which caused razor sharp spikes to rise from the ground in a line towards us. We both easily dodged the spikes but it still didn’t make the scream from someone else being hit less painful to hear. Sates now unleashed the fury of his signature attack, pointing his index fingers at the soldier and unleashing several dozen tiny fyreballs. Each one of these was very weak but became very powerful combined. The soldier shook as they all hit him like many, many tiny fists. Finally he was knocked to the ground and we continued our run. At last we made it to the stairs where we found Santuric kneeling by a downed 37745, a spike jutting out from his chest just like I had feared. Expecting him to be dead already I was surprised to see him turn his head and look at me. Sensing that he probably had little time left, I kneeled down by him. He raised his hand slowly and took hold of my robe, probably wanting to feel heat for the first time in his life and with the last amount of his energy he whispered “Go kill those bastards!” Then he coughed and I could see his face slowly turn blue as the Yce froze him from the inside. Anger building up inside me I began to run, up the stairs and away from the battle raging below. I could faintly hear Sates and Santuric try to follow me but it was hard to hear over the roar of the Fyre all around my head. It was time to get those fuckers. See also The Fyre Chronicles San Ting